John Mayall

I write songs about real things… The subject dictates the mood and it goes from there, really.

To me, they are equally important, as they represent a certain period in my life and times. With that in mind, it really is impossible to pick favorites.

I do the best I can with any instrument I get attracted to. But they’re just tools in order for you to express yourself and that’s really the upshot of it.

It’s part of what the blues does, to write about these things. JB Lenoir was the main one in this regard – he wrote about Korea, too, in fact. Songs that reflect these current situations – in his case, racial issues for the most part: in my case, what has happened to me, and I was in Korea.

Everybody I know in England was raised on Mose Allison.

I also went to art school and learned to play a piano there, but I play by ear.

Musicians have the intimacy of bringing two people together and the aesthetic, romantic transference.

There is nothing more stuntastic than rapping in front of an orchestra.

I didn’t get my music together until I was 40.

[on Django Reinhardt] This was a man who changed my musical life by giving me a whole new perspective on the guitar and, on an even more profound level, on my relationship with sound…During my formative years, as I listened to Django’s records, especially songs like ‘Nuages’ that I would play for the rest of my life, I studied his technique. Even more, I studied his gentleness. I love the human sound he gave his acoustic guitar.

In the world of Art there are no wrong choices.

When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.

She’s Dynamite’ was a 100 years ago, and I recorded that song because the company thought that it was a great song and it was hot. That was the beginning of rock n’ roll, and I guess they thought it would be a BB King version of rock n’ roll.

Everyone is working who should be.

The true beauty of music is that it connects people.

I’ve been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer.

If you’ve only got one horn playing, I still want the sense of ensemble.

Jazz singing is like pornography. You can’t say what it is, but you know it when you see it.

Musicians have to suffer to a certain degree in order to obtain their outlet.

The way I feel today, as long as my health is good and I can handle myself well and people still come to my concerts, still buy my CDs, I’ll keep playing until I feel like I can’t.

Everybody has somebody that they patterned themselves after.